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Monday, February 28, 2011

Because, for the first time, the radical changes that citizen responsibility demands are now possible.

It’s true that power (economic, military, energy, media…) has never before been concentrated in so few hands, a fact that soon gave rise to situations and events that are real –and often unprecedented- challenges, such as the speculators and the markets’ hounding of political leaders; oil consumption that, despite carbon dioxide’s toxic effects on the environment continues to increase along with its price, once again threatening the timid advances of global financial regulation; exploitation of natural resources continues in so many southern countries, progressively impoverished by the limitless greed of multinational consortia (coltan in the Congo unfortunately continues to be an odious example); not only have tax havens not been shut down, but they are receiving more funds than ever before; among the supranational trafficking that continues with unprecedented impunity, drug trafficking is particularly harmful, where there’s a refusal to admit that price is not a deterrent to drug use while its impact has triggered actual civil war in several regions in the world...

All of this has been accompanied by a gradual alienation of the United Nations, replacing it with groups of plutocrats totally lacking in institutional organization; delocalization of production with serious repercussions for the workforces of so many countries; powerful communications media that reduce us to merely fearful and uniform spectators...

As a tragic balance, hunger takes the lives of over 70,000 people daily while, armed to the teeth, we continue to increase the shameful sum of 4,000 million dollars invested daily in military spending, aircraft, tanks, rockets and warheads...

But for the first time in history citizens are acquiring global awareness, they know the “real reality,” as Gabriel García Márquez called it, which will enable them to compare and appreciate what they have, and what they and others are lacking. This “global vision” has an extraordinary transforming effect at the personal level. Human beings become progressively “aware” of the world in which they live. And thanks to modern communications technology, many are also now capable of expressing themselves, assuming commitments, acting and participating. I have often observed that this distance participation will soon result in substantial improvements in democracy and in citizens’ capacity to be active and proactive, especially with regard to young people. We have just seen what we had hoped for in Iran: mobilization brought on peacefully through cyberspace.

Yes: we are gradually ceasing to be passive witnesses to finally prompt the changes we dream of and desire. Let’s secure quick changes in the present system of powers. Take note: the tidal wave of mobilization through Internet and mobile phones won’t only change the particularly serious status of tyranny and oppressive regimes. It will go even farther to achieve the changes that are so necessary and urgent for human dignity, such as remedying social inequalities, providing an adequate quality of life for all (access to water, food, health, decent housing), with an urgent reduction in the nuclear threat and unbridled military spending in outdated weapons...

But above all we will promote prevention, adopting measures before the calls for justice, freedom and solidarity give rise to anger and violence. Soon, from cyberspace there will be support for adopting anticipatory measures, imagination. Because faced with those who oppose change, the only way to achieve it is through the unexpected, inventing the future. Our hope lies with the unexpected. I like to repeat AminMaalouf’s recommendation: "unprecedented situations require unprecedented solutions". At her inauguration Brazilian President DilmaRousseff said that in order to make dreams a reality it is necessary to “exceed the limits of the impossible". The impossibles of today can be the possibles of tomorrow, if we are capable of defeating inertia and facilitate evolution by preserving what is worth preserving and rapidly changing what needs to be changed.

We live in fascinating times: we have the means for participating; black presidents govern the destinies of the United States and South Africa; life expectancy has increased, particularly in the more prosperous regions of the earth, and it will now gradually extend to the others; the Soviet Union, so lacking in freedom, fell; capitalism, so lacking in equality and justice, has now likewise fallen...

We now feel new breezes, breezes from the century of the peoples. A new era is dawning. A new beginning.